1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of livestock feeding apparatuses, and more specifically, to an apparatus that immobilizes cattle for feeding purposes.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventional head chutes suffer from the disadvantage of having to run each animal through the chute individually. The animals have to be gathered, brought into the facility where the chute is located, sorted if necessary, and then run through and caught in the chute one at a time. This procedure can be time-consuming, especially if there is a large number of animals that need to be processed.
Furthermore, conventional chutes subject the animals to a great deal of stress. This stress is partially the result of being moved from their current location into the facility where the chute is located. This facility is usually an extremely dry and dusty corral. Stress is also caused when the animals are trapped inside the small space of a conventional chute. The animals may become scared, confused, and even angry. A common result of this stress is that the animals lose valuable weight. The trauma can also permanently alter the behavior of the animals, causing them to react with aggression toward humans and other animals. Accordingly, the traditional process for immobilizing livestock is both dangerous and ineffective.
An additional drawback of traditional immobilization techniques is that they reduce the effectiveness of the treatment being performed. For example, stress can cause a sick animal to have a poorer immune response to a therapeutic treatment; ultimately, the stress may result in death or prolonged illness in severe cases. When cattle are artificially inseminated, the stress caused by handling plays a significant role in determining whether conception is achieved. Current artificial insemination operations involved individual handling through alleys, chutes and head-catches, all of which cause undue stress on a female bovine at the most critical point in the breeding process.
Another limitation of conventional livestock chutes is the extra labor that is required to perform the operation. For example, it may take up to four ranch hands to perform a given procedure on 400 cattle using a conventional chute; this is because, as noted above, the cattle must be rounded up and moved to the facility, sorted, and loaded into the chute before the procedure can begin. Once the procedure has been completed, the cattle have to once again be moved back to their original location. All of this is time-consuming and labor-intensive.
The present invention aims to eliminate the level of stress imposed upon livestock when they are immobilized, thereby achieving higher conception rates and a less miserable experience for both the animal and the operator. The present invention also requires less labor to manipulate the cattle and perform the requisite procedure, resulting in overall cost savings. Finally, the present invention improves safety for both personnel and livestock.
Examples of inventions designed to immobilize livestock include: U.S. Pat. No. 641,480 (Turner), which discloses a multiple-cattle stanchion with a common operating bar that simultaneously opens and closes all of the stanchions; U.S. Pat. No. 2,754,803 (Stammel, 1954), which discloses a feeding gate with a first set of vertically disposed and immovable rods and a second set of vertically disposed and movable rods that are configured to move horizontally relative to the first set of rods; U.S. Pat. No. 5,178,096 (Lock, 1993), which discloses a livestock handling/feeding apparatus with a plurality of stanchions, each stanchion comprising a second sidebar that is parallel to a first sidebar in a first configuration and that pivots in a vertically oriented plane relative to a pivot support in a second configuration to increase or decrease the space through which the cattle insert their heads; and U.S. Pat. No. 7,784,431 (Hatfield et al., 2010), which discloses an assembly of animal stanchions that includes fixed stanchions and pivoting stanchions that are spaced laterally apart from the fixed stanchions and that fall into an open position when released from a latching mechanism.